Payors and patients may be vastly overpaying for some of the most common CT, MRI and mammography exams owing to huge price disparities both within and across regions, according to a quarterly report issued by change:healthcare.

The University of California at Los Angeles Health System (UCLAHS) has agreed to settle potential violations of HIPAA privacy and security rules for $865,500 following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR). UCLAHS must also implement a corrective action plan aimed at remedying gaps in its compliance with the rules.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has proposed a 50 percent cut to the professional component for multiple procedure payments in certain settings, a move the American College of Radiology (ACR) said amounted to blind cost-cutting that would imperil many radiologists and undermine patient care.

DMS Health Technologies has signed a multi-year mobile MRI agreement with Coteau des Prairies Hospital in Sisseton, S.D.

Ochsner Health System of New Orleans has signed an agreement with Philips VISICU to implement its tele-ICU program to enhance critical care.

SAN ANTONIODeploying a methodical and mathematical approach to preventive maintenance (PM), even with an inventory of more than 72,000 pieces of equipment, results in more than 3,000 saved and redistributed planned maintenance hours, according to a single-center case study presented June 25 at the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) conference & expo.

Self-referring physicians are 2.5 times more likely to order imaging exams on patients than physicians without financial stakes in imaging orders, resulting in an estimated $3.6 billion in additional healthcare costs each year, according to a study published in the July issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology.

When Google pulled the plug on its personal health record (PHR) service last week, it set off an interesting chain of reactions. Reports and punditry declared that PHRs were dead, PHRs never existed, Google Health was doomed from the beginning and Google Health was too far ahead of its time.